


that smile always makes me well

by zenstrike



Series: you’re lucky that’s what i like [11]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxiety, Bookish Keith, Family, Fluff, Forever and Always, Gen, adam is here too and background adam/shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 22:04:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16167794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenstrike/pseuds/zenstrike
Summary: Keith and his new guardian do their best.Written for Fictober Day 2: “People like you have no imagination.”





	that smile always makes me well

**Author's Note:**

> The line from the prompt actually happens off-screen, so to speak, but I hope you will all forgive me.
> 
> In another fic I mentioned Keith making Lovecraft terrifying becauase he has an overactive imagination and Shiro Suffers(tm). That absolutely happens in this universe, too.
> 
> This one made me feel soft. It’s just long enough that I’m not putting it on tumblr but it’s also so short I feel weird posting it???? Anyways! I hope you enjoy. Keith is 8-almost-9 here.

 

Keith was afraid to touch anything, at first. He sat very still in the middle of the couch and tried to blink afterimages of his father from his eyes and he tucked his hands under his thighs and he—waited.

    Shiro left him alone. Keith thought that was kind of him. He also thought Shiro was a little freaked out, too.

    Keith’s backpack sat in the guest bedroom they said would be his room. That they said _was_ his room. Keith tried not to think too much on that.

    He thought he could smell Shiro’s tea. He thought, too, that Shiro himself smelled a little like tea.

    He wiggled his toes.

    Something clattered in the kitchen. Keith lifted his head. He thought he heard Shiro swear and smiled despite himself and despite the roiling anxiety in his stomach. He kicked at the carpet idly and finally glanced around the little living room.

    On the coffee table: odd-shaped things Keith belatedly recognized as coasters, covered in neon designs that looked more like something spilled than something intentional; the TV remote with worn buttons; a neat pile of three paperbacks, their spines cracked and pages curling. Keith shuffled to the edge of the couch and reached for the books, brushing the corner of one with the tip of his fingers, then shuffled back. He sat on his hands. He hunched.

    He eyed the books.

    He made himself look away.

    He wondered if Shiro needed a minute to himself. He wondered if Shiro was nervous, too, or if maybe Shiro was already regretting—all of it. Keith thought about Shiro, with his bright smile and huge hands and the way he seemed to always stand perfectly straight. The first time they met, Keith had tried to squint and pretend that Shiro looked like his dad but that had hurt and hadn’t lasted.

    He looked at the ceiling.

    He looked at his knees.

    He strained to hear whether Shiro was still breathing in the kitchen. He wondered if he should go check on him.

    He looked to his right and he saw the bookshelves, tall and dark brown and side by side. They were stuffed, looking ready to burst with books on their sides and shoved on top of each other. On the top right of one there was a little pile of what looked like bookmarks. On the shelf below he could see a collection of round pastel-coloured figures.

    Keith tilted his head. He chewed at his bottom lip.

    He heard another bit of scuffling from the kitchen and shoved himself off the coach.

    He dragged his fingers over the first shelf he reached, studying the tracks of books and hands and his own touch in the dust. Titles and authors leapt out at him and he mouthed them as he went, touching each spine with the tip of his index finger. Blue and white: _Remainder_. Navy and soft: _Brave New World_. And again, but bright green: _Brave New World_. Keith’s lips twitched. The Iliad and the Odyssey with beaten spines and a bookmark sticking out of each of them. On the shelf below, a few anthologies of fairy tales and collections of short stories Keith didn’t recognize. A massive pink book: _Middlemarch_.

    He stood on his toes to peer at a higher shelf. _Paris_ , and then a pile of Star Wars novels on their sides. All three parts of _The Lord of the Rings_. A thin black spine with a bright yellow “USED” sticker. Two copies of the same book with different designs: _The Master and Margarita._

    Shiro came back, holding two mugs in one hand precariously enough that they clicked against each other. In the other hand he held a plate with small, round treats, the coconut flakes seeming to dance.

    Keith tucked his hands behind his back and turned away from the shelves.

    They blinked at each other.

    Shiro set the mugs and the plate on the coffee table. Keith could see the spines of the paperbacks, now: black, green, red; dragons, and more distracting than they should be.

    He blinked his curiosity away and slunk back to the couch.

    “You have a lot of books,” he muttered as he sat, this time pressed close to one arm of the couch. The cushions tried to swallow him.

    Shiro’s mouth twitched. He sat in Keith’s original spot, leaning back and looking down at Keith. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “Most of them aren’t mine.”

    Keith blinked.

    “Adam reads a lot,” Shiro continued, shifting as if to get more comfortable. “He also buys a lot of books.”

    “You don’t read?”

    Shiro raised his eyebrows. Keith huffed. “I read,” Shiro replied. “But I think the way I read and the way Adam reads are very different.” He paused. Keith looked away and eyed the pastries. “You and Adam have books in common, you know.”

    “Oh,” Keith said. He rubbed his palms against his knees.

    Shiro breathed out slowly and then leaned forward to tap at the paperbacks on the coffee table. “He took those down for you.”

    Keith froze.

    “I mean. To me they seem kind of big? And I think they’re historical novels are something.” Shiro paused, and then more to himself than to Keith: “But where do the dragons come from?”

    Keith vibrated, just a little.

    He could feel Shiro watching him. He could feel Shiro realizing how _weird_ he was, that he was quiet and short and easily annoyed and easily excited. Keith held his breath.

    “Uh,” Shiro said eventually. “I thought we could start them together. I mean—we could read them together.”

    Keith looked at him. Shiro shrugged.

    “If you want.”

    “Oh,” Keith managed.

    Shiro cleared his throat. “I could read a chapter, and then you could read a chapter. And Adam, too, sometimes, but I think he’d just use that time to make fun of me for having no imagination.”

    “I have enough imagination for the both of us,” Keith said, more seriously than he had really intended and he wanted to take the words back and eat them but Shiro was smiling.

    “Okay!” Shiro rubbed his hands together. “Let’s figure out which one is first, huh?”

    Keith reached for the books and pulled them onto his lap and Shiro insisted he eat one of the desserts and they both got coconut flakes all over their shirts. They started the first book and Shiro frowned a lot and then Adam came home, breathless like he had rushed, and had been horrified when he found out they had started without him.

    And Keith sat, clutching his cold tea, and thought that it was strange to be the center of their attention.

**Author's Note:**

> shiro: kay but is it kid-appropriate  
> adam: it’s keith-appropriate.  
> shiro: what
> 
> the series is the naomi novik’s temeraire series and honestly i haven’t read a temeraire novel since i was a teenager and i wonder if it is child-appropriate but i also think keith and adam would dig it and would dig shiro being confused
> 
> title comes from symbol by adrianne lenker.


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